The use of mobile devices and especially smart phones has significantly increased. Such mobile devices have become in many cases a primary replacement for other computing devices, allowing access to data by the mobile devices to a variety of application programs. Application programs, also known as applications, are designed to help a user of a mobile device to perform specific tasks. Such applications may be bundled with the mobile device and its system software. There are primarily two different mobile applications, a native application and a web application. Typically, a native application is downloadable from a central repository, for example, the AppStore®. Once downloaded to the mobile device, the application is locally installed on the device and then can be executed. A web application is executed on a remote server and can be accessed from the mobile device without any installation thereon.
To limit certain users, e.g., children, from accessing inappropriate contents and in particular, specific applications, mobile devices such as smart phones, are equipped with a built-in parental control mechanism. For example, the iPhone® operating system, iOS®, provides age restrictions for blocking age-inappropriate applications from being downloaded to the device. Thus, such an operation system, and other similar control mechanisms enable parents to restrict already installed applications that their child can access.
However, the wide and easy accessibility of such applications makes it very difficult for a parent to supervise the content viewed through a child's mobile device. Furthermore, in most cases, such restrictions can be overridden by the users, as they are merely protected by a passcode. For example, if a user (e.g., a child) knows the passcode to open the mobile phone, the user can change setting of the parental control mechanism. In addition, teenagers typically own their mobile phones, thus setting an access or parental control by configuring the device may not be an option for such a group of users.
Furthermore, parental and access control mechanisms are limited to the download, installation, and/or execution of already installed applications on the mobile device. Thus, for web applications accessed through mobile devices from remote servers, the built-in control mechanisms may not be applicable, because such applications are not downloaded and installed on the mobile device.
It would be therefore advantageous to provide an efficient access parental control solution that overcomes the limitations of the prior art solutions.